At present, the American-market, adult, full-size, wire-made shopping cart has a distinctive construction of a frame, casters, basket, hinged back gate and child seat.
The frame is composed of a chassis and a handle, made up of multiple, bent steel tubes, and sits atop four casters, the rear two of which track forward and back, and the front two of which swivel. A lower shelf of wire lies between the lower side rails of the chassis. The frame handle rises in the back from the chassis to form the “driver's” “steering mechanism.” The basket is see-through and mounts atop the frame, forward of the handle. A hinged back gate with a folding child seat completes the basket and allows the carts to nest with each other in the manner familiar to all shoppers in stores with carts.
While the frame handle is mounted at the rear of the shopping cart, a means to allow the customer to easily grasp the shopping cart from the front to provide an alternate means of propelling the shopping cart would be helpful.